BALASORE: In the first instance of its kind since the amendment to the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act in 1999, conversion of six tribals to Christianity was put off recently in Balasore district as police investigation into the causes leading to their conversion was yet to be completed, official sources said.
Police had stopped Channa Singh, a tribal of Jamabani village, and five others of his family from embracing Christianity on the ground that the investigation into the causes leading to their conversion was not yet complete, the sources said.
As per the amended law, a person intending to change his or her religious faith and the priest involved has to inform about it to the district collector in a prescribed form.
The collector would then ask the police to investigate the matter and report to him. If he is satisfied with the reasons for which the person intended to convert, permission would be granted for it.
The sources said the pastor of the Gel church at Kaptipada, Rev Rameswar Mundu and the six tribals had applied to the collector for permission to convert in the first week of this month.
But when they decided to go ahead with the ceremony on February 20 in the village, the police intervened saying the investigation into the matter was not yet complete and asked them to postpone the function, they said.
The pastor and the tribals heeded the police advice and cancelled the ceremony, they said.
Official sources said the balasore district units of the Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal had filed a petition before the collector on February 1 last requesting him not to accord permission to the proposed conversion of the tribals.
The amendments made to the OFR Act of 1967 has been protested by Christians in the state with some of them challenging its validity in the Orissa High Court on the ground that it violated the spirit of the Constitution which allowed citizens to profess any faith which they wanted to embrace.
The matter is presently pending before the court.
The issue was also raised before the National Commission for Minorities, now on a tour of Orissa. The chairman of the commission, Justice Mohammed Shamim, said that they had drawn the attention of the Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik to the amendment made to the clause.
Prior to the amendment made to the act, a person was only required to inform the district administration about his or her intention to convert into another faith.
The controversy over alleged conversion by Christian preachers and missionaries has been raging for quite some time in orissa which witnessed the macabre killing of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two minor sons on January 22, 1999. (PTI)